


A Life of Adventure

by Sailorhathor



Category: Passengers (2016)
Genre: F/M, Yuletide, Yuletide 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-02-15 12:02:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13030689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sailorhathor/pseuds/Sailorhathor
Summary: He's dead Jim.





	A Life of Adventure

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flipflop_diva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/gifts).



You may be wondering why there's a woman hibernating in your Autodoc. It's because your starship isn't foolproof. That may come as a great shock to you, the people of the Homestead Company.

You may sense some sarcasm in my written tone. That's because some of what I'm about to say will be sarcastic.

My name is Jim Preston, Passenger 2439. I'm the first person in history whose hibernation pod failed and woke him up ninety years too early. You would say that's impossible, that hibernation pods are infallible, right?

Then explain me being awake to leave you this message. Go ahead, I'll wait.

Speak up, I can't hear you. Oh, I see. You have nothing to say.

It's a bit weird that Aurora isn't the one composing this considering she's the writer, but she said this was too personal. Aurora is the one in the Autodoc. Aurora Lane, Passenger 1456. Gold Class Passenger, so you better treat her right.

I woke her up. I figured out how to manipulate her hibernation pod and wake her up early too. That may seem selfish.

It was.

I was dying of loneliness and she saved me. I saw her, I watched all her videos, I read all her writing, and I fell in love with her. Then I awakened her and damned her to a life with just me. The fact that she ever forgave me for it shows what an amazing person Aurora is and forever will be. I will always love her.

The reason we are apart is because of your food machine. I'm sure you'll say it's infallible too, huh? Well, you're wrong. Again, I get to be the first person in history who was ever cut off by a Homestead Company food delivery machine. You assumed your pods would never fail, so why build failsafes into any of the other machines on your luxury space liner? We were only supposed to be awake on this ship for four months. Your financial bottom line is more important to you than the possibility that someone may need to keep eating. You built failsafes into the machine to make sure no one would be able to overindulge and use more resources than their ID bracelet, and essentially, the type of ticket they had purchased, would allow. I found that out completely by surprise.

One day, your food machine simply cut me off. I guess it allowed me to go on longer than a normal four-month allotment, so thank you for that. The time I spent with Aurora was the happiest of my life. I only wish I could see what's to come. God, do I wish I could be there.

That day, I scanned my bracelet and chose my breakfast, and was told, "I'm sorry, you have used up your allotment of meals. Please see a crew member to purchase an extended food ticket." Your food machine voice is very pleasant, but it's not very comforting when it tells you it's going to let you starve to death.

Aurora started getting meals for me. This incident told us what we were in for, though. All the crew members, save for Gus Mancuso (God rest his soul), are still asleep. I searched all the manuals for instructions on how to give myself an extended food ticket, but those manuals aren't available to passengers. Gus's bracelet wouldn't get us an answer from any of the information consoles. You really hid those secrets away, didn't you? We considered waking up a crew member. We agonized over it. Ultimately, we would be damning someone else to a horrible death just so we could go on eating for a little while longer. We had to face facts.

I found what fate lay before us in one of your manuals. You really do think your starships are infallible. The food delivery machine eventually runs out of food. There's a limited supply, because after all, the five thousand passengers and 258 crew members are only going to need to eat for four months. If Aurora and I kept eating until her bracelet, and then Gus's bracelet, cut us off, we could be selfish. We could break into pods and steal bracelets from others, go on eating, but eventually, it would run out. Then when all your sleeping beauties woke up in 87 years, there would be none left, and Aurora and I would be skinny corpses on the Grand Concourse. There were other people to think of besides ourselves.

We had to make this decision. Aurora didn't want to leave me. I got her into this. It was never a question of who would be put into hibernation in the Autodoc, just when. We spent one last week together, dancing, playing games, eating in fine restaurants, visiting with our good friend Arthur, and making love. We took a few space walks, and watched the stars go by. Aurora wrote her own book about our time together - I highly recommend it. I'm sure you'll find it a fine historical record of a great tragedy, or maybe you'll see it for what it is - a record of the greatest romance that ever grew out of a horrible mistake made by an imperfect starship. Two people who lived a life of adventure.

I hope when you find Aurora in your Autodoc that you'll consider giving her a complimentary ticket for passenger 5,001, for as you can see, she's pregnant. This is part of the reason we made the decision we did. We had to think of our child and give her a chance at life. Again, we're making history, because no one has ever been put in hibernation while pregnant before. There are theories about how it would work, but it has not been tested because who's going to put a baby in danger to test the theories of the effects of hibernation on a fetus? Only someone unethical, or a mother and father desperate not to see her born only to starve to death.

They say complete metabolic suspension means the fetus will hibernate with the mother. Development arrested, just like the mother doesn't age. I hope these theories are correct. The opposite theories are horrifying.

Your Autodoc is what told us it was a girl. I wish I could be there to see her born. I wish I could be there to see her grow up. I hope she will have someone there to threaten bodily harm to her first date if he hurts her, and someone to embarrass her on prom night, coming to the door in his boxer shorts and taking endless pictures of her in her beautiful prom dress... and someone to walk her down the aisle at her wedding. I wish it could be me.

But, there is only one Autodoc.

So I will spend one last morning with my sleeping beauty, having my morning coffee courtesy of Gus Mancuso and reading what Aurora wrote about our glorious time together, and then I will commit suicide by spacing myself. I did it for all of you, and for Aurora, and for my little Dakota. We've decided to name her Dakota. My girls, I love you both very much. You must go on with your lives, but please don't forget me.

This reminds me of a very old TV show from hundreds of years ago where the ship's doctor kept telling the captain that people had died by saying, "He's dead, Jim." Since my name is Jim, I guess this saying would apply as long as you took out the comma.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry this is so depressing. I was just so interested in the machines on the ship and the implied nature that they would just go on working as expected for 90 years straight. The movie brought up so many questions to explore!


End file.
